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Why One Four Seasons Hotel Charges for Internet Access

Four Seasons Hotels once again tops our list of Worst WiFi Hotels 2008.

Considering that guests are paying top dollar for these luxury rooms (on average $400 a night), you would think free internet would be available. Think again.

Despite the fact that both budget hotels and numerous boutique/design hotel chains (some which command the same rates as a Four Seasons) offer free wireless internet, the Four Seasons brand is unwavering in their policy to nickel and dime guests for surfing the web.

Here a general manager at a Four Seasons hotel tries to explain why the charge is necessary.

There are several differences between Four Seasons and other local hotels who do not charge for internet service. Allow me to cite just a few.

· Four Seasons' hotel IT staffs or designated personnel are the first line of support to assist our guests.  These employees will call the appropriate internet service providers on behalf of our guests to resolve their issues.  During non-business hours, hotel IT staff can be paged to resolve emergency guest connection issues.  

· In hotels where free HSIA is offered, there is no one from the hotel to assist guests with their connection issues.  Guest are required to dial a 1-800 number to obtain support where, most often guests are likely to receive poor service from untrained operators.  It is "use at your own risk" because the service is free.

· In Four Seasons hotels, guests can request higher bandwidth or setting up a virtual private network for their colleagues who stay in the same hotel.  As well, Hotel IT staff will trouble-shoot guests' laptop PC configuration to resolve the connection issue.  In hotels who provide free HSIA, no personal services will be offered.

· Four Seasons has established company standard for dedicated multiple guest internet pipes in order to provide effective guest services.  We have adopted automatic fail-over multi-homing technology to ensure the ultimate up-time of the guest's internet connection, and we constantly audit and discuss the network management issues with all the service providers.

· In hotels that provide free HSIA, there are no dedicated guest internet pipes.  Sometimes, they are even mixed with the hotel administrative internet usages.  There is only a single network gateway to the service provider and no automatic fail-over to guarantee the network up-time.